Maj. General Lawrence Johnson, right, smiles after receiving the Distinguished Service Medal from Lt. General Jack Stultz, chief of the Army Reserve Command, center, during a change-of-command ceremony at Fort Lawton. less

Maj. General Lawrence Johnson, right, smiles after receiving the Distinguished Service Medal from Lt. General Jack Stultz, chief of the Army Reserve Command, center, during a change-of-command ceremony at Fort ... more

Photo: Jim Bryant/Seattle Post-Intelligencer

Ceremony ushers in change for Reserve, Fort Lawton

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As he walked the line of troops, eyeing for the last time some of the 3,000 men and women from his 70th Regional Readiness Command, Gen. Lawrence Johnson thought, mainly, about change.

For him, Sunday morning signaled the end of a 39-year military career, one hailed by President Bush as inspiring "countless people."

For Fort Lawton and the troops, however, the ceremony marked a dramatic historical shift -- both in the future of the site and the very meaning of the term Army reservist, a fact lost neither on the soldiers, perspiring in their green fatigues, nor on their commanders.

No longer can reservists expect to give up one weekend a month and satisfy duty. About 600 troops from the 70th -- residents of Idaho, Oregon and Washington -- are deployed in Iraq, and since 2001, an additional 1,200 from the command have made similar tours.

Illustrating the point, Brig. Gen. Christopher Ingram, who had been scheduled to assume authority over the troops from Johnson as the regiment's final leader, missed the ceremony -- delayed overseas while visiting reservists in the field -- Iraq.

"We are an Army Reserve at war, and there's a lot of angst," Lt. Gen. Jack Stultz said. "I understand that, with all the transformation that's going on. Things have changed."

While Fort Lawton is scheduled to close in 2009, after more than a century in Discovery Park on Magnolia Bluff, the fate of its 700 sweeping acres is in flux. The land, originally donated to the Army by Seattle, became city property again through an act of Congress in 1972.

In two years, the Army plans to disestablish it as a Reserve command. After that, its future is unknown.

There has been talk of building a golf course or of leaving the site natural, allowed to grow wild. Neighbors who walk there to gaze at Puget Sound worry about its obvious attraction as prime real estate.

"The developers are always around, waiting to pounce -- and I do mean pounce," said Mike Musselwhite, 62, who watched the change-of-command with two friends from high school, reminiscing about youthful days playing pool in the barracks and attending dances at the officers club.

"This was a military parade ground," he said. "And it's nice to see the military on it."

Similar thoughts were swirling through the minds of various spectators, more than 100 of whom had convened to watch the ceremony.

"This really is a bittersweet moment," said Sgt. Daniel Coon, 44, a reservist who returned recently from 15 months in Iraq. "If it wasn't for us, the park wouldn't even be here."

In his civilian life, Johnson works as a medievalist and English professor at the University of Texas, and he likes to take the long view. Walking the park's woods, he often stumbles across the corner of a sidewalk or spies a fire hydrant poking from the weeds -- vestiges of an active military past now ceding to history.

"The land has reclaimed it and that's a good thing," Johnson said. "The more things change, the more they stay the same."

The symbolism moved even a self-described hippie standing off to the side.

"Hey, I'm a child of the '60s -- I don't think war's a good thing," said John Jeffords, 57, who came to watch the cannon fire with his dog, Roya. "But I guess we wouldn't even have the choice of being 'hawks' or 'doves,' in America if we didn't have this."